


untouchable face

by Dandybear



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 2, Character Study, Derogatory Language, F/F, F/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9162670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: Hawke takes a month to start getting over Varric Tethras. He friends try and help.Part of the same universe as million gold question. Review my Dragon Age stuff, Scrubs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working through some unrequited love and heartbreak right now and used this to vent. It's self-indulgent, sure, but it is also pretty good. I took a break from writing to live my life so I'd have more to write about. Hooray for new material.
> 
> Little rusty, unbeta'd. Title matches that of an Ani Difranco song. 
> 
> Forever salty that Bioware didn't give us the Varric romance option.
> 
> *Oh yeah, Hawke is an intersexed chimera in this. (Chimera being the medical term for twin that absorbed other twin in the womb. Intersex can happen when a twin absorbs a twin of the other sex, among through other ways.)
> 
> Happy 2017 kids.

Each one of us  
Wants a piece of the action  
You can hear it in what we say  
You can see it in what we do  
We negotiate with chaos  
For some sense of satisfaction  
If you won't give it to me  
At least give me a better view

Overlap - Ani DiFranco

 

Love grows in me like a tumor  
Parasite bent on devouring its host  
I'm developing my sense of humor  
Till I can laugh at my heart between your teeth  
Till I can laugh at my face beneath your feet

Fuck Was I - Jenny Young Owens

 

* * *

 

 

Isabela’s finger skim down the notches of Marian’s spine. In the low candlelight her body looks like red earth and is warm and pliable to the touch, thick scars adding more bounce than resistance.

 

Marian’s on her stomach, humming through a sigh, stretched out and relaxed. Isabela’s not usually one for pillow talk, but she can feel the waves of inner conflict rolling off Marian like a tumultuous ocean.

 

“Hawke, I’m gonna say this as many times as you need to get it through your head, you deserve better than second best.”

 

The response is a tilted head and a movement of golden eyes behind thick lashes.

 

“I know.” Marian concedes without agreeing.

 

“You’ve got money, you work hard, you’re a fantastic shag… I mean, your equipment really is the best of both worlds. I could line up a list of suitors in a day of all sorts.” Isabela kisses Marian’s shoulder.

 

Marian cracks her neck.

 

“I know.”

 

“Having your pick of the litter doesn’t really matter when your favourite is already taken, does it?” Isabela sighs, rolling over to grab her tunic.

 

“Sadly.” Marian replies, curling onto her side.

 

* * *

 

 

The alienage always looks simultaneously shittier, and prettier than Marian remembers. She keeps her hands on her valuables and ignores the nod a guard sends her way. He’s standing outside an underage brothel. She’ll mention it to Aveline when she comes back. Fucking pigs.

 

Merrill has that usual dazed-but-concentrating look when she answers the door. Merrill’s sweet on her, Hawke knows this. She and Isabela really need to sort their shit out because using her as a weird messenger hawk is getting tiresome.

 

“I’ve just boiled some water if you’d like tea.”

 

“Tea sounds lovely, thank you Merrill.”

 

The chairs are mismatched and the table wobbles, but Merrill’s little house feels more like a home than the white stone and mahogany steps of the Amell Estate.

 

She watches Merrill putter in the kitchen. She’s opening jars of herbs and wrinkling her nose, testing the taste with a pinkie, then sticking her tongue out.

 

“Oh no.” She says.

 

“What’s wrong, Merrill?” Hawke says.

 

“The only tea I have is a very powerful meditation tool.” Merrill winces.

 

“Meaning?” Hawke says.

 

“It makes you see things that aren’t there.” Merrill says.

 

“Sounds like a fun.” Hawke stands to help.

 

“Often nightmarish things.” Merrill grips her own wrists, a nervous gesture.

 

“Less fun.”

 

“Damn, I was going to have tea and be organized.”

 

“It’s fine, Merrill. Your company is why I’m here.”

 

“That’s kind of you, Hawke. Would you like a warm mug of water?”

 

“Warm water’s good.”

 

The cup is too hot to drink from, so Hawke just lays her palms on the table. Merrill is already drinking from hers.

 

“Your heart is broken.” Merrill says.

 

Hawke blinks slowly, then nods, “Yes, my heart is broken.”

 

“That’s no good. Can’t mend a broken heart. Not really, anyway, I’ve checked. It’s one of those slow heal injuries.”

 

“Booze and sex are a good medicine.” Hawke shrugs.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Merrill peels a splinter from the table, worrying her lip in thought.

 

“I could hex Varric for you.” She offers.

 

Hawke snorts, “Thank you for the offer Merrill, but do not hex Varric.”

 

“Just a little hex. Like… like… the permanent feeling of a rock in his boot… only when he takes it off there’s nothing there.” She looks so excited.

 

“No hexes, Merrill.” Hawke says making pointed eye contact.

 

“If you’re sure.”

 

“I appreciate you defending my honour.”

 

“He’s an idiot not to want you.”

 

Hawke burns her tongue on hot water. It explains her eyes watering.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been close to a month since she’s visited The Hanged Man, her drinking has been done home alone in the dark or at pubs closer to the docks. She aches for him. Misses the way his lips twitch when he’s about to tell a joke. The warm rumble of his laugh. The raspy way he says her name.

 

She can’t see him. She wouldn’t be able to stand it.

 

Bodahn informs her that she has a visitor. She enters the foyer to her mother’s titters.

 

There stands Fenris, so beautiful that him being a freeloader doesn’t phase Leandra.

 

He holds up his white flag, a black bottle with a red wax seal.

 

Bull’s Blood, a good vintage too. One of the prized bottles in Danarius’s collection.

 

“You haven’t been around lately.” He says.

 

“Haven’t felt like being anywhere.” She sidesteps.

 

“I know the feeling.” He says.

 

Because Fenris struggles with getting out of bed most days too. She leads him to her study, because she has a study now. What the fuck does she need a study for? It just collects mail and dust. The house she grew up in had one fucking room.

 

“The others are worrying you’ve literally drowned yourself in your sorrows.” He says, using a claw to remove the seal.

 

“The others overestimate me. That would involve leaving my house.”

 

“That’s why they worry.” He goes to the shelf for a pair of glasses.

 

“I’ll be fine.” Marian says.

 

He looks at her from under his hair.

 

“You will be, but I don’t think that’s what you want right now.”

 

She takes a long sip of wine to avoid speaking.

 

“Damn, that’s good.” She says.

 

“It is.” He says.

 

They sit side by side in overstuffed chairs, illuminated by the fire. He always looks out of place in the comfort of a fancy home. Not for the first time, she wonders where Fenris does look comfortable. The two of them are like different plates of armour on the same body. Will do in a pinch, just don’t fit as well.

 

“I appreciate you coming over, Fenris.” She begins.

 

“It wasn’t my idea. Not that I think you deserve suffering. I would have just let you be.” He says.

 

“Fair enough, who sent you? Aveline’s on her honeymoon, though she’s hardly the meddling type.”

 

“Isabela. Thinks you could use a good dicking to get Varric out of your head.” He finishes his glass and refills.

 

Hawke snorts, “That sounds like something she’d think.”

 

The light catches his lashes as he gives her a sidelong glance, “Do you want to have sex?”

 

Hawke rolls the goblet against her palm in thought, “No, thank you. You’re not really my type.”

 

He snorts, “Fair enough.”

 

“Do ask Mother though. I’m sure she could use a good dicking.”

 

That gets an actual laugh.

 

* * *

 

 

She does take Isabela’s advice on the dicking. He’s the biggest Qunari she’s ever seen, with massive horns, and striped pants. She tells him her safe word is Amell, his is Red.

 

He’s a big slab of meat kind of man, she can barely get her arms and legs around him.

 

Marian is left satisfied and with an exfoliated neck and chest from his stubble burn.

 

“Your horns look like a dragon.” She wraps her hands around them.

 

“We Qunari are descended from dragons.”

 

“That is so hot.” Hawke says.

 

* * *

 

Hawke awakens to the curtains being pulled open. She groans and shrinks away from the light.

 

“Word in Kirkwall is that you’ve been hiding out in your house for a month.” Aveline says.

 

“Aveline, love of my life. Welcome back.”

 

Hawke’s breast is falling out of her robe as she’s struggling to free herself from the sheets.

 

“I thought, that can’t be the Marian Hawke I know. The Marian Hawke I know wouldn’t fall to pieces over some smooth talking dwarf.”

 

Aveline accepts the hug, naked parts and all.

 

“Little Man done broke my heart, Aveline.” Hawke says into Aveline’s shoulder.

 

“Right.” Aveline says, pushing Hawke away.

 

Hawke deflates.

 

“Meet me downstairs. Get dressed.” Aveline uses her no-nonsense voice.

 

Begrudgingly, and with curiosity, Hawke follows the order. She ties her hair up tight for the first time in over a month. She wears something other than a robe and a sad grimace.

 

At the bottom of the stairs, Aveline is stretching, Mother watches, amused.

 

“Look at that, you got her out of bed before the sun’s at full height. That is quite the feat, Aveline.” Leandra says.

 

“Thanks for the support, Mother.” Marian says, tone biting.

 

Aveline nods to them both, then grabs Hawke by the wrist and throws her over her shoulder. Hawke lands with an ‘oof’ on her back, winded on the floor.

 

“The hell are you doing?” She wheezes.

 

“Lying around moping isn’t going to help you get over it. You’ve done all the crying and talking bits, but you need to physically move. Let your body move on.” Aveline says.

 

“You’re going to kick my ass to heal my broken heart?” Hawke says.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Alrighty then, just checking.” Hawke pushes back onto her feet with surprising agility.

 

She takes Aveline’s knee out and gets an elbow driven into her shoulder in response.

 

“Do mind the vases, girls.” Leandra says, taking her tea with her as she leaves the room.

 

Hawke’s teeth are gritted, she’s pounding at Aveline’s stomach with her free hand, her other locked in a tangle with Aveline’s. Their thrashing leads them slowly to the floor, with Aveline gaining the upper hand, getting Hawke into a headlock.

 

“I give, I give.” She slaps at the ground.

 

Aveline releases her, panting hard. Hawke rolls off her and they lie side by side, watching the ceiling spin at arm’s length of each other.

 

“My brain feels lighter.” Hawke says.

 

“Told you.” Aveline says.

 

“Did you have a good honeymoon?” Hawke turns her head to look at Aveline.

 

“Well, our little romp only gave me more bruises than the week with Donnic.”

 

“Woof. You slut.” Hawke laughs.

 

They lie in that comfortable silence. Each staring at a different fragment of the fresco on the ceiling. Hawke keeps her eyes fixed there as she speaks.

 

“I’ll be alright, Aveline. I’m done wallowing, I’ve just been preparing myself. Need to change how I perceive all of our interactions. He’s not staring at my lips because he wants to kiss me. He’s memorizing the shapes my mouth makes for when he writes his big book about me.”

 

Aveline blows out a sigh, “I can see how that would confuse you.”

 

“I know, right? Thanks for rescuing me.” Hawke tips her head so her nose brushes Aveline’s ear.

 

“That tickles.” Aveline laughs.

 

* * *

 

 

The tension is too thick for a knife to cut when Hawke sits down, nonchalant as can possibly be, at The Hanged Man.

 

Aveline scoots over, offering Hawke a seat on a shared bench. Across the table Isabela and Merrill gawk at the open air between Varric and Hawke.

 

It’s when Anders sits down with a goblet of wine that the conversation continues.

 

“So then, he comes back to the clinic with boils all over his testicles and looks at me like I’m the one who did something wrong. And, I say, ‘I did tell you not to go down to the docks.’”

 

The others laugh, over-loud at a punchline to a set up Hawke missed. She takes a sip from her ale and then clears her throat.

 

“Did you hear the one about the elephant in the room?” She says.

 

Isabela snorts at that.

 

“What about it?” Merrill says, blinking slowly.

 

“It’s sitting right there and no one’s acknowledging it.” Hawke points vaguely.

 

Merrill turns to look. She’s rubbernecking in search of the elephant until Isabela grabs her by the upper arm.

 

“Figure of speech, Kitten.”

 

“Oh. You could have just said that, not made me look like a horse’s ass.” Merrill says, annoyed.

 

“Sorry Merrill. Just trying to break the ice.”

 

“A lot of ice grows when the heat’s been off for a month, Hawke.” Varric says.

 

“Merrill has asked us to lay off the metaphors.” Aveline says.

 

“What did this man with the boils on his dick look like?” Isabela says.

 

“Oh, you know, he was a dragon, a bearcat, a sweet sunrise.” Anders smiles as he says it, feeling quite clever.

 

“A chimera then?” Hawke says.

 

Varric grunts and gets up from the table. He’s pulling his pipe out of his coat and a long match. His figure disappears behind a group of bickering mercenaries and out the heavy wooden door.

 

Hawke takes a very stiff lipped sip of her drink.

 

Isabela levels her a stare and then rolls her eyes.

 

“Come on, Kitten. Let’s go back to your place.” She brushes a lock of hair from Merrill’s face.

 

Merrill’s eyes dart down to Isabela’s chest, she licks her lips, “Alright, I’ll get our tab.” She says.

 

Hawke doesn’t really question where Merrill’s money comes from. She’s not a beggar or a whore, not that either of those are poor career choices. Hawke has a feeling it falls into the legally grey areas of spells and potion brewing.

 

“I should get back to the guard.” Aveline says.

 

Everyone turns to look at Anders. He sighs heavily, finishes his beer, and stands.

 

“Traitors, the lot of you.” Hawke says.

 

“We still love you, Hawke.” Merrill says.

 

“But you need to sort this shit out between the two of you.” Anders finishes.

 

When Varric returns to the table Hawke is carving a hangman into the wood in front of her, teeth digging into her lower lip.

 

“Hey.” He says.

 

“Hey.” She says.

 

“I’m sorry I don’t love you like that.” He says in a breath.

 

“Not your fault. I’m not trying to force you.”

 

“Then why do I feel so guilty?”

 

She shrugs.

 

Varric scrubs a hand over his face.

 

“I just want everything between us to be okay.” He says.

 

“That’s gonna take some time.” She says.

 

They fall into a silence less uncomfortable than before.

 

“I do love you.” Varric says.

 

Hawke rests her hand over his, “I know you do, Varric. I’m just gonna need some time to accept that love as the only kind between us.”

 

Varric rolls his lips, swallowing the words he isn't ready to say. The 'I don't want you to's' because that's not fair. Instead, he raises his mug to that.

 

"Think the kids'll stop tiptoeing around now that Mum and Dad have smoothed things over." He says, lightly.

 

There's pain in her eyes when she laughs.

  



End file.
